Bush And Qaddafi - Partners In Crime

Like most Americans I had always believed that the brutal dictator pictured above, Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, was an enemy of this country. After all, his regime not only supported worldwide terrorism but he was directly responsible for some vicious terrorist attacks -- including the bombing of the Pan Am plane over Lockerbie, Scotland and the nightclub bombing of U.S. soldiers in Germany. And whether he was responsible for it or not, he publicly applauded the assassination of our ally in Egypt, Anwar Sadat. Hell, Ronald Reagan even bombed Libya in 1986.

But it seems that every American president didn't see things that way. After stealing an election, curtailing the rights of Americans with the Patriot Act, starting two unnecessary wars, authorizing the torture of prisoners, and selling out to Big Oil interests, George Bush (and his evil cohort, Dick Cheney) decided that Qaddafi wasn't such a bad guy after all. They picked him to be an ally -- albeit a secret one.

Now that Qaddafi has virtually been overthrown (although he's still in hiding trying to save his worthless neck), documents of the Libyan government have come to light. And some of those documents show that starting in 2002 the Bush administration had the CIA form a working relationship with Libyan intelligence services.

There were some detainees that Bush/Cheney wanted answers from, but decided that the methods of torture needed to get those answers were too extreme even for them. I know its hard to believe that any torture was too extreme for Cheney, but evidently there were some. But no torture methods bothered the brutal Qaddafi, and that made him useful to Bush/Cheney.

The United States "renditioned" detainees to Libya (sent them to Libya to be tortured). I'm sure some in the Bush administration would claim they didn't know what happened to the detainees after they arrived in Libya (plausible deniability). That's just not true. The CIA not only provided the questions to be asked while the Libyan torturers did their job, CIA officers actually sat in on many of the torture sessions. Bush administration officials not only knew what was happening, they approved of it.

And it gets worse (if that's possible). The Bush administration arrested some anti-Qaddafi Libyan "extremists" and turned them over to Qaddafi -- helping him to prop up his brutal regime. The current leader of the rebel Libyan army is one of those the U.S. arrested and gave to Qaddafi.

If it wasn't proven before (and I believe it was) then this leaves no doubt that Bush, Cheney, and others in that administration did plenty enough to classify them as war criminals. They should be arrested and turned over to the World Court in the Hague to be tried for their crimes.

Federal Courts Not Interested In Justice

When I was growing up, I was taught that the primary interest of the courts in America, especially the appeals courts, was to ensure that justice was done in our judicial system. Under the Bush administration, that is no longer true.

The primary purpose of our federal courts under Bush is to protect the dirty secrets of lawbreakers in the CIA and other government organizations. Consider the following case.

On New Year's Eve of 2003 Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, was trying to legally enter Macedonia. He was kidnapped by CIA operatives and "renditioned" to a CIA-run prison in Kabul, because he was mis-identified as an associate of the 9/11 hijackers.

He was held there illegally, secretly and without charges for five months. While there, he was beaten and sodomized with various objects in an attempt to extract information that he did not have. In fact, after the five months of torture they realized they had kidnapped the WRONG PERSON!

The Bush administration has not denied that this happened. They are still convinced they have the right to do anything to anyone as long as they use the magic words "national security".

Khaled el-Masri felt he had been wronged - imagine that! He sued George Tenet, the CIA and the corporations who owned the airplanes used to illegally transport him to Kabul. But instead of hearing his legitimate case, the court dismissed it, saying the case could not go forward because it would reveal national security secrets.

He then appealed this outrageous dismissal to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Surely he could get justice from them - right? Wrong! They backed up the ridiculous action of the lower court.

Judge Robert King, who wrote the cout's opinion, said that the case could only go forward by using "evidence that exposes how the CIA organizes, staffs and supervises its most sensitive intelligence operations."

ACLU attorney Ben Wizner probably puts it best when he says, "What's most troubling about this is it literally grants the CIA complete immunity to engage in any kind of misconduct."

It also shows us that under the Bush administration, the priorities of our federal judicial system have changed. The number one priority is to cover up crimes committed by government organizations. The second priority is to not embarrass the Bush administration. If we're lucky, administering justice comes in a distant third. Disgusting!